Queen bee rearing is a nearly century old practice; it is also an art which requires patience, skill and a steady hand. Queen bees (hereinafter referred to as “Queens”) vary greatly in size and weight; the greater the weight the more ovarioles a queen has and the more eggs she will lay. The size of the queen is a direct result of how well she is fed and cared for during her growth and development, especially during the larval stage. Better queens are produced when nectar and pollen are available in greater quantity. Larger, quality queens produce more offspring than poor ones. One wants the maximum number of bees in a hive during the honey flow; this means maximum brood production. A standard, healthy colony of bees requires a constant emergence of brood from a laying queen to maintain balance and strength.
A typical method of rearing queens is by the grafting technique which entails the transfer of young larvae from a brood comb to queen cells. It is very important that there be an abundance of pollen- and nectar-producing plants during the time the queens are raised. This may require that queen rearing be restricted to a particular time of the year. However, some queen raisers have been able to grow queens all year using pollen and nectar substitutes.
There are many steps involved in the typical process of commercial queen rearing. As previously mentioned, the larvae is scooped out of the brood comb along with its existing royal jelly and carefully placed into a queen cell cup. Using a standard slotted wooden frame that is typically used for honey production, the filled queen cell cups are hung opening down in the slot of the frame.
The filled frames are slid into a cell draw colony where young worker bees feed the larvae to the point where the larvae are sealed off in the cell. These frames are banked and put into an incubator. During this time, the queens are “pupating” or turning from larvae to insect.
It takes approximately seventeen days for a queen to emerge from her formed cell. Before she emerges, the queen cell is put into a mating nucleus colony, or “nuke”, where she emerges as the only queen. Small nucleus colonies (about a handful of bees) result in a higher percentage of accepted queen cells and mated queens. Smaller groups of bees are likely to accept any queen. However, even with a weak nuke colony approximately 20% of queens do not live. When queen cells are introduced into strong colonies, as many as 50% of the queens are destroyed by the other bees that are not familiar enough with her.
A significant problem associated with beekeeping can be pests. A weak colony can be easily overtaken or killed by pests where a stronger, larger colony can be far more resistant. A good pest example is the African Small Hive Beetle that has recently been found in the United States. This beetle has wrecked havoc with the standard grafting method of beekeeping as they ravage and destroy weak colonies. The only colonies able to resist the beetles and keep them in check are strong colonies. However, the survival rate of queens in strong colonies is fairly low. When the queen dies, the remainder of the colony will die as well and there is both a loss of bees as well as a significant mess to clean up before a new colony can be placed in the hive. It is important to have the ability to introduce queens into stronger colonies that are able to survive pests such as the African Small Hive Beetle yet it is also necessary to have queens that can survive the introduction.
One solution is to protect the queen during emergence into a strong colony. Queen cell protectors by Ezi-Queen Systems are hair-roller shaped cages used to cover the queen cells so emerging queens are confined until the bees in the colony have accepted her. Unfortunately there are several problems with these cages. When the queens are placed in the colony in the cage, there is no means of keeping the cage oriented in a way that the queen remains upside down. If the queen does not maintain this upside down orientation, she can be deformed or damaged at emergence or often not survive at all. Another problem with the Ezi hair roller cage is that the cell cup is attached to the cage opposite the emergence hole. If oriented correctly with the queen upside down, debris from the queen's cap can fall into the emergence hole during the queen's emergence not allowing the queen to emerge and she will die. Additionally, the Ezi-roller cage does not have room enough for the queen to move around as it is a narrow tube—the queen can only move forward and backward. This can lead to deformed, weak or non-surviving queens. And finally, the Ezi-roller cage is not suited for high production queen rearing, but meant for the low production, hobbiest.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a virgin queen bee rearing and emerging device and system that will produce healthy queen bees with a near 100% efficiency rate.
It is an another object of the present invention to provide a queen bee rearing and emerging device and system that will allow introduction of virgin queen bees into strong colonies with minimal or no danger to the newly emerged queen.
It is yet a further object of the present invention to provide a device and system that allows the use of standard beekeeping supplies for correct queen orientation during rearing and emergence.